Subscribe to the Journalism.co.uk podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud and Spotify
When the Africa Women Journalism Project was launched last July, it sought to give women journalists in the region the knowledge, skills and support needed to cover the most under-reported stories.
Grant-funded by the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ) and led by ICFJ fellow Catherine Gicheru, a veteran journalist based in Kenya, it set out to provide mentorships and support to newsrooms across five countries in East and West Africa: Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda.
The timing was not an accident. Newsrooms were seeing mass-redundancies as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, with women being the first to go. Virtual reporting alternatives were much less used for under-reported stories in rural areas. Plus, many of these stories centred around sensitive gender-based subjects like female genital mutilation or access to family planning services, as well as stories which have emerged throughout covid-19.
In this week's episode of the Journalism.co.uk, Gicheru talks more about the mission of AWJP and how supporting women journalists helps cover more of these under-reported stories, which ultimately contributes to meaningful societal change.
Free daily newsletter
If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).
Related articles
- MoJo checklist: covering political events with a smartphone during covid-19
- Improving mental health in the newsroom
- New community journalism project uses innovative storytelling to highlight the plight of insecure work
- App for journalist: JSafe, for reporting online abuse
- Ronson Chan, deputy assignment editor of Stand News, on press freedom in Hong Kong
